"Invisible Ink is a powerful tool for anyone who wants to become a better screenwriter. With elegance and precision, Brian McDonald uses his deep understanding of story and character to pass on essential truths about dramatic writing. Ignore him at your peril."
—Jim Taylor (Academy Award?- winning screenwriter of Sideways and Election)

Friday, January 17, 2014

Why a deus ex machina doesn’t make a satisfying story.

Before I start this post I want
to apologize for the long gap between this post and the last.I was deep in a project that took up a
lot of my time and mental energy. That project is more or less done—more or
less. So, now I can take the time to write a post. I hope that I can make them
more frequent. Thanks for sticking with me.

Recently, I have found myself in a
couple of email exchanges about the idea of deus ex machina (pronounced like “day-us eks mawk-inna”).

For those unfamiliar, translated
from Latin, deus ex machina means “god
from the machine”, referring to the special effect of a god arriving on stage
machinery, and it has come to mean that a storyteller has pulled the solution
of the story out of his…out of nowhere.

In ancient Greece some playwrights
(I’m looking at you, Euripides) would use this device to get their heroes out
of trouble and end their plays. A god, at the climax, would descend from
Olympus and solve everything. The hero of the play did not solve the problem
himself, and after a while, audiences found this device tiresome. Why?

Aristotle said, “The resolution of
a plot must arise internally, following from the previous action of the play.” Again,
why?

To answer that question we have to
look at why humans tell stories in the first place. As I talk about at length
in my book The Golden Theme, I believe
stories are told to pass on survival information. This is why stories are about
conflict. Often, when I say this, the first thing some people do is go through
a list of stories that they think are not about passing on survival information—but
there are all kinds of survival. There’s physical survival, social survival,
cultural survival, spiritual and emotional survival. All kinds. If you think
you have found a story that is not about some kind of survival, chances are you
haven’t looked deeply enough.

Stories provide us with a kind of
dress rehearsal for conflicts in real life. It doesn’t matter if the story
takes place in the “real” world or a fantasy world of some kind, like sci-fi,
sword-and-sorcery, or another era in time. And it doesn’t matter if the story
uses animals instead of people as characters, it will contain survival
information. At the very least the character usually learns something about
herself or the world, and learning is a great assistor when it comes to
survival.

Slaves in the American South told stories of a trickster named Br'er(brother) Rabbit. The character was used to pass on information about how the seemingly powerless might use their wits to survive.

The more stories we have in our
heads, the more prepared we are for different types of conflict, and just what
types of options we might have to overcome the conflicts we encounter in life.

Let’s look at the first Indiana
Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. In
this story, archeologist Indiana Jones is trying to obtain, and keep out of the
hands of the Nazis, the Biblical Ark of the Covenant. The Ark is said to have
great power: an army that marches with the ark before it is invincible.

At the story’s climax Indiana
Jones and his partner, Marion Ravenwood, are tied up against a pole and the
Nazis have the Ark. When the Nazis open the Ark, it is a god from the machine
as the power of the Ark is unleashed on the Nazis, killing them all, but
leaving Indiana Jones and Marion unharmed. Their ropes have been burnt, setting
them free.

Why does this work?It shouldn’t, but there it is—working. How?

When the story starts Indiana
Jones doesn’t not believe in the Ark and its power. Here is an exchange between
Indiana Jones and his friend Marcus Brody:

Brody: Well, I mean that for nearly three thousand years man has
been searching for the lost Ark. It’s not something to be taken lightly. No one
knows its secrets. It’s like nothing you’ve ever gone after before.

Indiana:
[laughing] Oh, Marcus. What are you
trying to do, scare me? You sound like my mother. We’ve known each other for a
long time. I don’t believe in magic, a lot of superstitious hocus-pocus. I’m
going after a find of incredible historical significance, you’re talking about
the boogieman.

There it is: Indiana Jones doesn’t
believe in the supernatural. One way to think about this is that Indiana Jones
believes he understands how the world works. But by the story’s end, Jones has
changed and does believe in those things he formerly disbelieved. Or maybe he
simply realizes he doesn’t know everything. He has grown. He has learned.

The story was not about whether or
not Indiana Jones could break free of his ropes. By this point in the story, we
have seen him do some amazing things and make incredible escapes. At this point
in the story it is about his change, and it is this change that saves him. When
the Ark is opened, he believes in its power enough not to gaze on the Ark as
its power is unleashed. This is what saves him, not the god from the machine. Being
open to changing one’s mind may save your life.

This is not an absolute truth, but
it is often true in life that we get stuck in a way of thinking that is
detrimental.

It is important in a story that a
character can solve her own problems, because the audience is there to learn
how to overcome theirs. So, in just about every case if some mysterious force
or unlikely coincidence saves the day, the audience feels cheated. And they
have been cheated.

You may have a story where a
character needs to learn that there is always hope or that miracles can happen.
There are people in life who survive car crashes or other accidents that should
have killed them. Or maybe they survive an illness that the odds say they
should not have.

But in such cases, the story’s
lesson had better be proven by a god
from the machine event. The lesson ought to be about a character’s state of
mind. Maybe a character needs to believe that there is always hope and that
helps them to survive.This is the
kind of story that is more about emotional or spiritual survival rather than
physical.

The reason deus ex machina doesn’t work in other instances is because it doesn’t
teach us how to solve problems. It doesn’t teach us how to survive.

Man, when I saw the subject matter with a picture from Raiders, I was already preparing my argument. And then I actually, you know, read the post. Seems we both prepared the same argument. Good stuff. Glad to see another post from you.

Just wanted to tell you that, thanks to your books and blog, I now understand the difference between writing a story and crafting one. It is a profound difference, one that is both exhilarating and powerful. Thanks for being so willing to share you tremendous insight on the subject of story.

I love your stuff, but if it's not too inconvenient could you add jump breaks within the first few paragraphs of your posts? It would make your posts on the home page display a bit of preview text rather than the full text, which would make browsing through your blog much easier.

I constantly scour the web for anything from you and it's always an exciting treat to read these posts and carry them around with me. I've been engaged in a battle with a writing project and you've been an invaluable resource. I plug your work to anyone that will listen.

This one is interesting because when I first read Invisible Ink I came out intimidated and almost discouraged at the idea of using a "god from the machine" approach. It seemed cheap. Hearing this again reminded me it's just another tool in the box. I remember the panic on Indie's face when he's pleading for Marion to close her eyes and trust what he now knows to be true. Though I didn't articulate the meaning then, I do remember the performance from Ford and now knowing why it hits home even harder!

If you don't know how to add a jump break, it's very simple. Just bring the key cursor as far into the post as you want the preview text to be, then click the little "jump break" icon. It should be right next to the "video" icon.

Thanks for sharing such nice information!! You can find more products at affordable price in Splashjet.co.in.Splashjet is one of the best Printing technology. Splashjet offers wide range of products for desktop and LFP inkjet printers. For more information about ink manufacturer Visit Splashjet in Today.

Great to see you back in action! I was worried something might have happened so it was quite a treat to see a new(ish) post listed in google today.

I compensated for your absence by buying Freeman, Golden Theme, Ink Spot and re-reading Invisible Ink book (yes, I own that one too!).

I'd like to ask, or maybe suggest, why don't you try and make Freeman into a graphic novel? I can appreciate why it was difficult to produce as a movie with the arrival of Django and 12 Years a Slave but Freeman could work quite well in something other than a screenplay.